Destroyer of Worlds
by Ammaren
Summary: A series of connected one-shots in an AU where Anakin doesn't turn to the Dark Side, and where the wrath of the Yuuzhan Vong falls just a little earlier on the unprepared Republic.
1. Purple Skies in the Morning

**Purple Skies in the Morning**

Summary: Obi-Wan comes to find Anakin, at the end. Anakin watches a sun die. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe. 

* * *

The world as he knew it ended on a Tuesday, with a bruised indigo sky overrun with bright tongues of orange flames from Coruscant's swollen sun. Anakin watched the sky brim with lumps of misshapen rock after rock, from the balcony of his apartment, transfixed.

It was so silent.

The Force was eeriely quiet, as if it had thought to hold its breath in the minutes that stretched on and on and on as ships tore themselves out of the sky. It was a perfect silence. The klaxons hadn't sounded. Maybe they never would, the wind whispered.

"Anakin!" Obi-Wan called out urgently. "_Anakin!"_

He'd never heard his former Master sound so frightened before. But he'd never seen a sullen purple sky before. It was a day of firsts, Anakin concluded. It was impossible to feel afraid. He should feel afraid.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, calmer now, but his eyes and the way the Force hummed around him, tightly-controlled but like the buzz of static turbulence over an old comm system told a different story. He grabbed Anakin, spun him around. "We have to leave. _Now_."

It was the same tone he'd used, worlds and ambushes ago. A war ago, when the sun was just a few shades brighter than fresh blood. A world that Anakin could barely remember and hardly forget, blinking through mud-splatters.

"He told me," Anakin said quietly. He stared up at the invading fleet, at the spectacular flare of light that could only come from a dying sun. _Even stars burn out_. Once, the thought had filled him with fear. Now, there was nothing but the dim resignation that the passage of fear had left in its wake.

Obi-Wan took a cautious step closer, eyebrows raised. Anakin read the question, and answered it. He was going to anyway. "Palpatine. He told me about them."

But we didn't believe him.

"Anakin, it is not your fault –"

_You don't know that_, he wanted to say, but the Jedi Master knew that there was a time for guilt, and Anakin shoved it away, stuffed it into the small corner of his mind where he put all the things he didn't want to think about. And he was too old. Too drained.

"It doesn't matter now," Anakin said tiredly, "He told me what they do best." He stared at the sky again, trying to lose himself in the vapour trails, and wondering what happened to Coruscant's defense systems. But of course he knew. Obi-Wan did too. They'd all been compromised.

Obi-Wan's urgent hand grabbed his shoulder, shook him. "Anakin, pack what you need. We're leaving."

"They destroy worlds," he whispered, echoing the words of a man…of a man long dead. "They break worlds, and shape them in their own image."

How do you fight an enemy that can kill a planet?

"_Anakin_," Obi-Wan said, and this time, his voice was durasteel. There was a trace of understanding in his clouded blue-grey eyes. "We don't have time."

They had just enough time to watch the streaking solar flares from the dimming sun, bright against the deep violet sky. Anakin found he'd packed a long time ago. The Jedi training reasserted itself as he grabbed a survival pack, checked it to make sure the devices still functioned. Jedi didn't accumulate too many possessions, and he had little he could truly call his own. After a lifetime, habits stuck.

That was what training was for. Training kept him moving and certain, even as he tore his eyes away from the destroyers of worlds.

"Anakin?" Obi-Wan asked. He would not betray his diplomatic training by slouching, or leaning against the duraplast walls of Anakin's apartment, even now. His arms were folded across his chest in a motion that Anakin remembered so well and that he'd been copying for so much of his life. What he meant was, _are you ready?_

Anakin swallowed. He glanced back at the framed holo on the living room shelf. All four of them smiled back at him: Padme, holding Luke's hand. He was ruffling Leia's hair. His whole family, all of them together for the holos.

His hand – the one of flesh – clenched around the holo. He'd had to consciously remember to do that. Now, the mechanical hand failed him on occasions. It must have been something with the servomotors, he'd meant to get it fixed, but always kept pushing it back until…well, there wasn't a point now.

Obi-Wan was still watching him. Still waiting. In one decisive motion, Anakin shoved the holo into his survival pack, secured the flaps, and then engaged the sealing mechanism.

"I'm ready," he said roughly, to hide the way his voice threatened to betray him.

As ready as he would ever be.


	2. A Good Day to Die

**A Good Day to Die**

Summary: Garen thinks about growing old, and faces the likelihood of his own death. A Jedi's life is sacrifice. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe. 

* * *

There was a time when the shriek of proximity klaxons would have sent his hand scrabbling for the hilt of his lightsaber. Now, it was the stretched, artificial quality of the silence that sent a faint trickle of unease down Garen's spine. It sluiced off his skin in icy rivulets that coagulated slowly in his veins and became fear.

There was a faint murmur, the barest of undercurrents in the Jedi Temple, as Jedi glanced warily into the bruised purple sky. _Hurikane purple_, Garen thought, staring at the faint wisps of clouds. He almost couldn't summon to mind the faint steel-grey of the overcast Coruscanti sky, or the shining, translucent blue of the clear sky.

This was a deeper, brooding violet, teased with faint scarlet at the edges, and he frowned as he caught sight of movement in the planetary airspace. Through the Force, there was nothing there: absolutely nothing, but the enormous void that he had dimly sensed at the edge of his perceptions for days.

And then Mace Windu himself had called for a Code Echo-Home-Seven, and Garen knew there was something to the vague feelings of forboding he had. Code Echo-Red-Five had only been used once, and that had led slightly under a hundred available Jedi Knights to die on the sands of the arena on Geonosis. Garen had never been there; still, he had nightmares of red sand and strewn bodies and violent, stormy skies.

The last Code Echo-Home-Six was one priority level lower; Garen remembered the siege of the Temple only too well, remembered watching Padawans who should have been far too young to join the fighting go down and watching seasoned Knights fall to volleys of blaster bolts. He'd fought in that siege, and tried to save Tal-Ren Jorjan but failed and took a blaster wound to the thigh. Jocasta Nu herself had saved him, deflecting a spray of blaster bolts and a grenade, dragging him along with a tenacity that had meant Garen's life.

Garen activated his comlink for the wide-frequency Jedi broadcast, watching as the comlink crackled and buzzed but then a spray of blue laser finally resolved itself into the grimly determined form of Mace Windu. The hologram flickered in and out; Garen frowned and suspected some intermittent communications disruption –

Communications disruption.

"_Jedi,"_ the small figure announced, _"This is an emergency. Calling Code Echo-Home-Seven. As many of you may be aware by now, Coruscant is under attack. The planetary defense systems are down – Tanir Mukdas has been trying to patch us through to the military."_

There were quiet murmurs from the Jedi near Garen, all glancing at their comlinks. Attack. An alien fleet was attacking Coruscant. Not just an attack, Garen realised, with a sudden, sharp horror. It was a full-scale assault. They'd begun with communications disruption, and something that looked like a chemical weapon, if the new hue of the skies above Coruscant was to be believed.

"_Our starfighters are still functional, thanks to the shielding of the hangars. While we coordinate Coruscant's defense with the military, I need at least fifty Knights to take to the starfighters. Master Plo Koon will lead the force to engage with the first of the enemy ships."_

The tiny simulacra of Mace Windu paused. Hesitated, in fact. Something in Garen _clicked_ into place.

He knew.

And then, Mace Windu continued, almost unconsciously brushing the back of his hand across his forehead in a tired gesture, _"The members of the force will be made up of volunteers only."_

Garen inhaled sharply. Volunteers. Mace was asking for Jedi to come forward to form a suicide squadron, to buy time for Coruscant's defenders to assemble and to punch straight through the confusion that had formed.

None of them were expected to survive this.

"Volunteers, huh?"

Garen didn't startle at the voice. He'd sensed the familiar presence approaching him, even before Kyp Durron had spoke up. He was quite used to the way his former Padawan liked to strike up a conversation right from the middle. Garen shrugged. He didn't say it out loud, though from the frowns and mutters around them in the corridors, plenty of Jedi had already figured out what Mace hadn't said explicitly.

"_All Jedi stand by for further communication. Windu out."_

A Jedi's life is sacrifice. They were taught this, even from a young age in the creche. A Jedi sacrifices attachments. A Jedi sacrifices his possessions, and if he must, he sacrifices his life.

Garen blew out his breath slowly from between pursed lips, and thought about how eager he was to die. "Looks like it," he replied neutrally. Kyp laughed and clapped a friendly hand on his old Master's shoulder.

"It'll just be like old times."

It was, Garen thought quietly, always easier to face death when one was younger. Kyp wasn't getting accustomed to losing just a little of his edge, seeing the beginnings of grey, tiring just a little more easily. His brazen daring had eased out to a kind of brash confidence that was still mostly the dazzling luck of youth.

Still, he let Kyp guide them both towards the hangar. _Oh, Padawan, you still don't know what you've signed yourself up for…_He glanced behind him, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse, or a lingering Force trace of Obi-Wan or Bant.

There was nothing.

The Temple was large, Garen knew. The chances that he'd run into Obi-Wan or Bant near the pilot simulators weren't particularly high. Still, he thought about the last time he'd spoken to his Mon Calamari friend. They had dinner together the last week in the dining hall, when Bant had teased him gently about how his reflexes were dulling, and he'd countered by pointing out the faint trace of wrinkles in her salmon pink skin.

He tried to think about everything they'd said, and if anything could sufficiently count as any sort of goodbye. Funny, he thought, once you realised you didn't have very much time left, everything changed. He wondered what he would say to Bant, even if he could.

Of the Jedi assembled in the hangar, Garen caught too many familiar faces. Jedi Master Plo Koon himself was one of the best pilots in the Jedi Temple, and while Garen had never seen Rahm Kota fly a starfighter, he knew that Rahm Kota was never one to shy from a fight.

"Big party," Kyp commented innocently.

Garen rolled his eyes. He knew what Kyp was leading up to. "So it is," he said quietly, "But that puts us at five squadrons, five fighter pairs to each squadron."

"Think that's enough?"

Garen considered the question, seriously, first. No. Fifty Jedi were nothing against an entire fleet they knew nothing about. Mace had known that too, and Kyp surely knew it. He'd trained the man better than that.

"I'm taking the first squadron," Plo Koon was saying, "Second squadron will be commanded by Rahm Kota…"

A question of morale, Garen thought, and he forced himself to smile lightly. "Piece of quinberry cake," he said, and Kyp laughed.

"Fourth squadron, Garen Muln."

Heads turned, trying to spot him. "Congratulations," Kyp smirked, as Garen slipped through the crowd to join the other appointed squadron leaders. Valin Halcyon headed the fifth squadron, and as the leaders assembled at their designated sectors of the hanger, their squads trickled in to join them. Despite the undercurrent of urgency, there was an almost party-like atmosphere as Jedi readied ships, decided wing-teams, and tried to ease the tension and the acute awareness of impending death with black humour.

Garen took the north sector and wasn't surprised to see Kyp saunter over to join him. He'd take Kyp on his wing, he thought, ruthlessly smothering all thoughts that didn't pertain to the mission. Kyp, at least, should know what lay in store for them.

He counted off his squadron – Jaskvi Yth, Brad Uchad, Loryn Kace…he recognised some of them, and took the names of the others before settling wing-teams and call-signs in under five standard minutes. That had to be some sort of record, Garen thought bemused, as they set about to double-checking their starfighters and swiftly running through pre-flight checks.

Pressurisation seal, activated, check. Gravitational compensator indicators green, settings at standard percentage. Cooling systems, green. Shield functions check.

He realised the indicator light on his comlink was blinking, and Garen hesitated before answering it. "Garen."

"_Garen, this is Obi-Wan,"_ the familiar, dry voice on the other end of the connection said, and Garen suddenly felt a warm prickle in his eyes and he squeezed them shut. Not now, he pleaded silently, doing a Jedi breathing exercise to force his breathing to steady. _"Coruscant's lost. Evacuate off the planet, we're regrouping at the Weiszel sector. Mace's called for a strike force of volunteers only…"_

Garen swallowed, but still his voice trembled, "I'm leading one of the squadrons, Obi-Wan."

For a few moments, he could hear nothing but silence, and the sound of comm static. Distantly, he could pick out the sound of Obi-Wan's breathing.

"_May the Force be with you, Garen,"_ Obi-Wan said quietly.

"May the Force be with you, old friend," Garen said, forcing himself to sound casual. He added, "It'll be a piece of sweesonberry cake. Tell Bant I said hello."

"_I'll do that. Watch your six, Garen."_

"I've been doing this for longer than you, Obi-Wan," Garen said, and his throat grew tight as he shut off the comlink and connected it to the Aethersprite's intercomm. "Testing. Delta Squadron, this is Delta Leader. Do you copy?"

"Delta Two, checking in," Kyp's voice was another startling brush against normalcy, and Garen forced himself through Jedi breathing exercises until he felt perfectly calm and unrattled.

The rest of the team checked in, and that was the end of the pre-flight checks. Garen checked in with Plo Koon ("Delta Squadron ready, Alpha Lead,") and received the departure clearance. He engaged the engines smoothly, and then flipped the repulsorlifts on, and pulled back on the control yoke.

The Aethersprite zipped out of the Jedi Temple hangar and shot into the hazy purple sky, one out of fifty starfighters all flying the red-and-white of Judicial Department colours. A Jedi's life is sacrifice, Garen told himself again. It was as good a day as any to die.

He pushed the distracting thoughts out of mind as they locked wings into secondary positions and accelerated to attack speed to make the first run at the alien ships.


	3. Knightfall

**Knightfall**

Summary: Mace doesn't expect to survive the fall of Coruscant. Vergere has other plans. 

Notes: Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe. Tentatively set at the same time as _A Good Day To Die_ and _Purple Skies In The Morning_. Also set before _Pandora's Box_. This is pretty much a very dark version of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, set a little differently in time.

* * *

Mace Windu blinked open his eyes.

The movement sent purple-green electric sparks arcing along optic fibers of nerve bundles shooting in needle-sharp pinpoints prickling behind his eyesockets deep in his skull. He ground his hand against the persistent ache in his forehead.

He tried to sit up; everywhere ached and hurt. His chest hurt, and when he glanced down, he didn't see a wound – he saw a thin, pale line of pink flesh that throbbed when he touched it. It looked days old, raw flesh knitting together into a faint scar that would later fade ghost-white against his darker skin. His robes had been slit there, with the neat cut typical of a bladed weapon.

Mace didn't remember being wounded. He was also certain he hadn't been out for days.

The apartment was dark; the only light that came in was through the large transparisteel-paned window, transforming all colours, even the dun beige of his robes into variations of sickly alien hues.

Mace didn't know how long he sat there, legs tucked up against his aching chest. He flipped the switches at least five times with the Force before he realised they'd hit the power generators. Maybe the Temple's backups too.

He sat there for a while longer, staring at the swirling malevolent magenta skies in the dim mauve-edged shadows before Mace realised that the power wasn't going to come back on.

Ever.

* * *

It had all begun with purple skies in the morning.

Or with Depa's abduction. Or with Vergere's return from beyond the Outer Rim, when the Archivists in charge of the Jedi Temple rosters had long written her off for good. Or that morning so many years ago, when he had supported Master Yoda's conclusions when the Council deliberated about what Palpatine had told former Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker.

Mace's first act as the new Grand Master of the Jedi Order had been to reinstate Anakin Skywalker as a Jedi Master. Skywalker had told him precisely where he could stick that promotion – or reinstation. But he hadn't resigned, either.

Or it had begun with a comm transmission from Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Mace had been considering the problem of Kyp Durron's latest mess when his comm unit had blinked, indicating a call. Calls to his private quarters were usually made by personal friends: a quick check had shown it was from Obi-Wan's comlink.

"_Mace?"_ Obi-Wan's voice issued from the speaker. Mace frowned. Reception wasn't usually so bad. This time, static crackled and threatened to disrupt the comm transmission, and he made a mental note to check with the Temple communications centre.

"Obi-Wan," he greeted tersely, "What is it?"

"_Mace, get the Temple to evacuate. There's an invasion fleet – an alien fleet, and communications are being jammed right now. I've had to get through a great deal of static to even patch this through to the Temple, and Coruscant's lost, Mace, it's imperative you get as many Jedi and civilians out as possible…"_

Mace heard the words, with stunned incomprehension. "Coruscant's lost? An invasion fleet?" And breathed them, the mind of one of the Republic's military commanders coming to the forefront. The situation crystallised as he breathed and reached out instinctively to the Force, trying to feel for shatterpoints…

And he fumbled and felt uncertainty. Half the faultlines buckled and threatened to slip away into a void: the other half of them were tied in an intricate knotted matrix around the Jedi Temple and beings that Mace could only barely sense.

And Kenobi. And Skywalker.

All this went through his mind in as much time as it took for him to ruthlessly quash the doubt. The General assessed the situation; the Jedi Master winced but saw Obi-Wan's logic. "Understood," he said crisply. "Coruscant's defenses?"

"_Offline. Someone's disrupting communications and any attempt to coordinate a defense. Mace…down….contacts say…inevitable…"_

"Obi-Wan?" Mace tried, "Obi-Wan! Come in. Your signal's breaking up."

"_Coruscant's planetary defenses are down. The planet is defenseless, Mace. My contacts say defeat is inevitable."_

Mace made the difficult decision in a heartbeat. In a moment, he was a Jedi Master again. He stopped reeling from the idea that Coruscant was lost, and started weighing choices, coolly deciding how many he could save.

"Understood," he said into the comm unit. "I'll ask for volunteers."

There was a heavy silence from the other end of the comm. Mace didn't notice it. He was too busy trying to decide who to send, who he _could_ ask to make the difficult decisions. They were all Jedi. They were all willing to die for the Republic. How many would be willing to do what didn't come naturally: to run away, hide, and to save themselves for the strategic good of the Republic?

"_I've got Anakin, we're heading over to the Temple – "_

"No," Mace cut Obi-Wan off, "Obi-Wan, your responsibility is to get Skywalker off Coruscant." That much, he knew was important. If there was anything Mace could believe in, it was Skywalker's prowess as a warrior, and a pilot. _And the Chosen One_. The Force had shown Mace the dark lines of power, radiating outward, and he knew that Skywalker and Kenobi were bound up in this once more. "I'm charging you with his protection. Skywalker _must_ live, and you _must_ get off Coruscant, regardless of whatever else happens to anyone. Do you understand?"

_Would you sacrifice the whole planet to save Skywalker, Mace?_ It was a dark thought. He ignored it. It wasn't one that he had to think about now.

_A general would have dropped a baradium bomb on that arena._ Strange how often his thoughts took the sound of Depa's voice, now.

"_Mace,"_ Obi-Wan said, and he sounded worried, _"We have to evacuate –"_

There was an explosion, and then a low whine, and then the lights went out. They were back on a few moments later: the dim emergency lighting flickered on.

"_Mace?"_

Mace did not curse. However, he demanded sharply, "What was that?"

"_EMP pulse,"_ Obi-Wan said, and now he was very definitely worried, _"Someone fired a series of EMP missiles and detonated them point-blank over Coruscant. All systems are down. The Temple has back-up generators…"_

And shielded hangars, Mace realised, calculating. Which meant that the Republic military bases could already be hit and already down. And if an invasion fleet was on the way, then most of the Republic's ships were out of the fight for hours yet.

His blood ran cold. Without larger ships, evacuation was an almost-impossible cause.

"…_Starkiller,"_ Obi-Wan mentioned, and then Mace realised he'd missed what Obi-Wan was saying. He'd been too focused on the problem at hand.

"What about him?"

"_Anakin won't leave until he's certain Starkiller is safe."_

"Obi-Wan, Starkiller isn't even _on_ the planet. He was on a mission to Bakura." Mace did not add that he would have evacuated Skywalker's old Padawan, if that was what it took. "Protect Skywalker, Obi-Wan. May the Force be with you."

"_May the Force be with you, Mace."_

Mace shut off the transmission, and then cast one more glance at the sullen purple skies. That should have been their first warning, he thought, dismayed, before he palmed open the door and headed for the communications centre at a run.

* * *

The snap-hiss of his lightsaber activating almost startled Mace, as he activated it and spun on his heel, blade arcing out to point directly at Vergere's throat. And then he was staring stonily at her, the lightsaber held steady in his grasp.

"Vergere," he said. He did not lower the lightsaber. Vergere. The renegade Jedi Skywalker and Obi-Wan had been dispatched to find, so many years ago. The Knight who had returned to the known galaxy after years and years of absence. Who had taken Depa and fled, and was now within reach of his lightsaber. Mace did not consider if it was a perfectly Jedi response. Vergere was dangerous. Of that, he was absolutely certain. "What do you want?"

"Hello, Mace," Vergere said cheerfully, with one of her inscrutable smiles. Her hands were by her side, perfectly relaxed, and she made no move to reach for the lightsaber that she must be carrying concealed on her. The feathers of her cranial crest betrayed no sign of anything apart from amusement. "I quite expected to find you…here," she glanced about at his quarters momentarily.

Mace grunted; he wasn't sure he could believe her. And an unarmed Jedi was still dangerous. The Force was their ally. A lightsaber just made them a lot more dangerous. The unique physiology of Vergere's species meant that he'd have to adjust tactics if it came down to a duel. "Get out."

Teardrop shaped eyes shifted subtly as Vergere's mouth twitched. Half-smile now. "Or else?" she asked, merrily. "You should know by now, _Master_ Windu. Orders are not orders unless backed by force."

Mace wasn't going to force a confrontation. He didn't have the time for this. He realised he was tense, like a stretched string, and forced himself to relax. Be motion, the Ataru Masters instructed. Be fluid. Water does not anticipate; it reacts.

He took one more step towards her, to unsettle her. The lightsaber cast violet-edged shadows near the vulnerable Fosh neck. "You are under arrest, Vergere. Consider your Knighthood suspended, pending disciplinary action."

"Only a fool," Vergere said softly, "Plays games of power when the world is crumbling around him." Eyes bright, whiskers twitching, she stared at him, feathers turned a bright shade of purple that matched the vivid hue of his lightsaber blade. "Are you a fool, Mace?"

Mace's hand squeezed the hilt and he watched his lightsaber blade shrink away, felt the anger die down in him. He was not surprised, anymore. "And I suppose your masters are pleased with you."

"Mace," she said. Chiding. "You've become _petty_…"

"Tell me what you did to Depa."

"Don't you have other worries?" she wanted to know. "Mace," Vergere said patiently, as if he were a youngling being instructed in the Jedi principles of combat, "You don't even know the face of your enemy."

"Then tell me."

She took a step forward, and then glanced up at him. "They call themselves the Vong. The Yuuzhan Vong. The Temple is falling. If you don't get your act together, Mace…" she leaned forward conspiratorially, "They will _destroy_ the Republic."

Tricks, Mace knew. Jedi focus creates reality. Words create the focus. He met the doubt with the iron will of a Jedi Master. Do not seek to control the future.

This time, the snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting was not his. Mace triggered his lightsaber in time to block the shining blue of Vergere's blade. He whirled and sank into Vaapad in a moment, feeling the snarling energies course through him as he met a one-handed cut with a swift parry that forced Vergere backwards until she slammed a Force-push that landed hard and fast, socking him in the gut.

He wavered and Vergere was in and under his defense, pushing him fast. She slapped aside his lightsaber with a reverse-Shien parry, and then one clawed hand touched his cheek, lightly.

It was damp.

Mace fell.

* * *

Mace Windu opened his eyes.

The movement sent purple-green electric sparks arcing along optic fibers of nerve bundles shooting in needle-sharp pinpoints prickling behind his eyesockets deep in his skull. He ground his hand against the persistent ache in his forehead.

He tried to sit up; everywhere ached and hurt. His chest hurt, and when he glanced down, he didn't see a wound – he saw a thin, pale line of pink flesh that throbbed when he touched it. It looked days old, raw flesh knitting together into a faint scar that would later fade ghost-white against his darker skin. His robes had been slit there, with the neat cut typical of a bladed weapon.

Mace didn't remember being wounded. He was also certain he hadn't been out for days.

The apartment was dark; the only light that came in was through the large transparisteel-paned window, transforming all colours, even the dun beige of his robes into variations of sickly alien hues.

Mace didn't know how long he sat there, legs tucked up against his aching chest. He flipped the switches at least five times with the Force before he realised they'd hit the power generators. Maybe the Temple's backups too.

He sat there for a while longer, staring at the swirling malevolent magenta skies in the dim mauve-edged shadows.

Finally, Vergere spoke up from a pool of purple-black shadow, in the corner of the room. _You should leave soon,_ she said, _or you will die._ Mace blinked, and winced as the motion sent splinters of pain kniving through his head. For a moment, he could see the plastcrete of the wall through her translucent form.

He grunted a response and settled for ignoring her.

_They're coming, Mace,_ Vergere said. She came over and crouched down in front of him, so close that she was almost touching him. Mace didn't blink this time as he stared back at her. He would see her even if he closed his eyes.

In his dreams, he saw Coruscant fall to the night. He saw the city become a planet-wide jungle, fungi and mold swallowing the sharp striking corners of duracrete, making everything soft with decay. Now, the jungle was here with him, in this room. Brassthorn vines grew thick and ropy in the purple-inked shadows. He could feel the tendrils pulse in time with his slow heartbeat.

_It is in the darkest night that the light we are shines brightest,_ Vergere continued. He blinked, as if he had been struck, and stared at her, eyes narrowed. _The information you carry with you is the key, Mace. And what will you do with it, hmm?_

She was joined by a familiar figure who walked out of the shadows, and then nudged at Mace with the toe of his boot. _Time to go, __dôshalo_, Kar Vastor rumbled, needle-sharp teeth flashing in a predatory grin.

Mace reached into the Force – or perhaps the Force reached into him. The moment crystallised, faultlines of decision and significance fusing into a bright crusted web of cracks. Suddenly, that which was clouded earlier was now imbued with a new clarity; the void melted away in the Force, showing him lines of choice.

The Force showed him nothing of Vergere, or Kar. In a way, Mace had already expected it. It made things so much easier.

Everything pointed to him. Now, _he_ was the anchor on which the shatterpoint of this whole war swung towards. Kenobi. Skywalker. The lines still radiated off into the distance. The whole mess was gaining some form of momentum. Mace looked deeper into the Force, assessing shifting planes of stability, chaos, reality – the layers interlocked to form the intricate lattice that was _the _moment, _the_ war, here and now. He sensed that if he hit it in just the right way, the shatterpoints would cascade outwards…would unravel, to reveal…

To reveal what?

_Dôshalo_, Kar Vastor growled. _It is time._

Mace went.


	4. Pandora's Box

**Pandora's Box**

Summary: Padmé plays the Senator of Naboo, and the politician who must hold the galaxy together in the aftermath of Coruscant. In the confusion, she knows nothing of Anakin's fate, or Luke's. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe. 

* * *

I am tired, in a way I haven't actually felt, since the beginning of the Clone Wars, since the blockade of Naboo, since…

I think about the day I knew it couldn't have worked out between us. Anakin. I press my hand to my forehead. It is cold, but suddenly, I want to do nothing more than to lie down on the sheets of my bed and stare up into the empty space between floor and ceiling.

How can I even begin to explain it? These things are complicated. They are complicated in their simplicity.

Instead, I am looking at myself in the mirror with a critical eye, tracing the sharp hollow between eyelid and cheekbone in the glass. They are darkened from the lack of sleep. I read exhaustion in almost every crevice of my appearance. Sabé tells me I need to eat more, rest more. I would, but there is only one of me, and one of me is far too little for what the galaxy needs, right now.

Coruscant has fallen.

I repeat it and watch the figure in the glass say it with me. I can almost hear it from her lips, with a clinical detachment that my elocution teachers would have been proud of. _Coruscant has fallen,_ she says, every inch the Queen I once was. The Senator.

I know the significance. I've been on Thayce, where refugees from the Tharian Corridor are packed together in little huts of wood, each hut the size of a Jedi Temple closet. This war is unsettling. Our enemy is faceless, and the dead of Coruscant are silent. There are few survivors of Coruscant: most of them died with the planet as the sun imploded, sending deadly flares racing across the surface of Coruscant.

Thousands, millions of ordinary men and women and children burned to death in the work of minutes.

Coruscant was the first step; the first decisive strike in the war. And it is a war. If we do not know what these invaders hope to achieve, we know that we must fight back. We must resist. They will stop at nothing but our destruction.

Already, refugees are fleeing to us from the Core Worlds. Fear spreads faster than anything else does. Corellia's defenses are bristling, ready to rise up to the fleet that destroyed Coruscant, but still, people are frightened. They ask themselves: what can a planet's military do against a fleet that could kill a sun?

Corellia stands alone; the next planet in the chain. The Senator of Corellia, Garm Bel Iblis and Diktat Shyla Merricope are calling for Republic systems to hold firm, to send reinforcements to Corellia.

If Garm is canny, then he must surely know it is a lost cause. The reinforcements will not come. Not in time. The destruction of Coruscant: this is the wound we cannot recover from. This is the wound we _must_ recover from, if we are to survive. Without the Senate, the Republic is broken, splintered into fractious systems that act alone. If systems stand alone, then this faceless enemy that we do not yet know will destroy us.

Outside this room, there is too little of me; far too little. The galaxy needs so much more to establish some form of alliance, some form of military hierarchy. Some overarching strategy and ideal to unite us. I need to find a way to do just that.

Coruscant. The planet held much more than the heart of the Republic; it was the centre of power, all our bureaucratic systems, our common military. Now that there is no Coruscant, no structure to enforce the laws that all systems agreed to, we are falling apart into a squabbling chaos. I cannot help but be appalled at how readily we all turn back to fear and self-interest; I cannot help but be amazed at word of what can only be deeds of great courage and valour.

Contruum, Corellia – these worlds stand together. Already, Mon Calamari has pledged a fleet to the cause of this Alliance. If we can cement this and bring the frightened worlds back into the Republic, we may still salvage something out of the wound of Coruscant.

Inside this room, I think of what this _means._

Luke. Oh, Luke. Inside this room, I am a mother, and I am frightened for him. When Coruscant fell, so did the Jedi Temple. I check my comlink, try to remember when Luke last checked in – he had been on Vjun, investigating a link, and I feel…afraid. I know what the refugees must feel, as I dread for my son and hope he was not on Coruscant when the planet fell.

I think of how it must feel to be charred into oblivion.

I can only hope it was quick.

Leia is on Alderaan, and we have spoken briefly, working with diplomats to try to negotiate a swift solution with the balking worlds. We are similar, my daughter and I, although I had seen only Anakin's temperament in her. We cannot stand by while the galaxy is suffering.

And Anakin.

I watch my shaking hands, distant. As if they belong to someone else. Thinking of him brings the ache back, the familiar sadness, the familiar weariness. I tell myself again it wasn't working. We were hurting each other, more than anything else. We were young, then.

I say it as if I am old. If pain is a measure of age, then I carry the pain of a mother and a wife with me. That is pain enough to make me as ancient as the galaxy.

_Anakin_.

He was a Jedi, in the end, no matter how much he tried. He is too much a Jedi to turn away, too much a Jedi to run away. Anakin. Obi-Wan. They must have fallen with the Temple, perhaps blasted out of the skies, or burned out of this life in a pyre of flame.

For a moment, I see nothing but fire in the glass.

I squeeze my eyes shut so tightly that I see the glass blur when I open them again. I have to be strong. The galaxy needs former Senator Amidala of Naboo now. Not Padmé. Not the woman, torn between fear and love.

There's no room for what Padmé needs. Not now.

I rest my forehead against the cool glass. Here, in my room, I weep. The survivors of Coruscant are already starting to speak, already starting to tell tales of terror and blind panic. I try not to wonder how Anakin's last hours must have been.

I do not ask the few escaped Jedi if they know of Anakin's fate. _Did he suffer?_ I want to ask. It is a silly question. It does not matter now, if Anakin suffered. It does not matter except to me, even after all this time.

I am shaking, and the memory of Anakin is holding me, telling me that I'm strong, that sometimes, he thinks I'm the stronger one of the two of us.

Sometimes, I'm tired of being strong.

I am thinking now, of a story of a woman named Padmé. My father was a man who knew his stories, who loved them, and he named his daughters after his favourite characters. Sola was named after a princess who cast herself from a rock to save her people. Padmé – now this is different story, of a woman and a box.

_There is a woman_, he will say, _slender as a bird, with dark, cat-curious eyes. Can you picture her, Padmé?_

They don't mention if she was beautiful. In any case, she is no princess, no hero, and if she is beautiful, it is but a pittance. But to me she is beautiful, in the way the fragile things are; so fragile that you could only cup them softly in the palm of your hand, for fear that anything less than perfect gentleness will break them. To me, she is beautiful, if such shallow things matter.

_The story continues. There is a box, perfectly crafted. Perhaps it is forbidding; a dark thing of mahogany, plain, but bound at the corners with oak, rowan and holly, the sort of box that whispers secrets in voices as thin as old paper, crinkled at the edges, when you test your fingers against the polished grain of the surface. I want you to picture, __Padmé__, the woman confronted with this box. She runs her fingers along the smooth wood, waiting for the ink of the words written within to stain her fingers. Waiting for the secrets to leak up and through the sanded planes._

There were evils, the story says. The gods had put all of the world's evils, crumpled it into the palm of one hand as if it were a piece of paper, and put them into a box you could hold in your hand.

I believed this, when I was a child. The older woman does not know what to believe. To tell such a story, you must not have lived. A box is too small a home for all the world's evils, even for a god. A box is not enough for a world, much less the galaxy.

A box would not contain even a millionth of the ashes of Coruscant.

_But there were evils, and the evil swept out and overwhelmed the world. And weeping at what she had done, __Padmé shut the box and rushed out of her house, to see people weeping, a man covered in sores, another whose wife had died, and yet another who had lost his limbs, and so on and so forth. And then she knew what her curiosity had brought upon the world and she could not bear it. She returned to the box, trying to see if there was a way to repair what she had done._

_And then she heard a voice. A faint, thready voice – softer than the whisper between heartbeats. "Let me out!" the voice cried, but Padmé ignored it, until finally, she opened it out of pity._

_There was a tiny thing; like the space sunlight occupies in a room. It circled her once, glowing, and then spread its wings and flew up into the sky. "What are you?" Padmé demanded._

"_I am Hope," came the whisper. And this is why I have named you after her, Padmé, for never forget that after sadness, comes hope._

But I am older now, and more weary. If Padmé was not at fault for unleashing evil into the world, then she must be held to blame for Hope. I am older now, and the young child-Queen seems unbearably distant.

And then I know. Padmé was gullible, and innocent. She was deceived.

When I speak to the survivors of Coruscant, I don't ask them about Anakin. I don't ask them about anything except for what information our generals may use, if there is anything they know about this relentless enemy that is closing in on us.

I don't ask about Luke.

My father is a good man. This is why, perhaps, it never occurred to him. He, too, was young once.

Perhaps hope, too, belonged there, in that box.


	5. The Alderaanian Council

**The Alderaanian Council**

Summary: The galaxy is reeling from the loss of Coruscant, of Contruum and Corellia and most of the Core Worlds. Alderaan is next in the invasion path, and Leia Skywalker is part of the war council. Set in the Destroyer of Worlds universe.

* * *

It was a grim audience that gathered in the private meeting chambers of Alderaan's royal palace. Most of the Core had fallen to the invaders which they knew nothing of, and most of the galaxy was reeling.

It had been brilliant, Leia acknowledged. The destruction of Coruscant had almost immediately removed any coherent leadership from the galaxy, in one fell stroke. In the same step, the invaders had disrupted communications. Most of the galaxy's news, accessible on the HoloNet, had passed through Coruscant.

They knew nothing at all about any invasion paths, or if the enemy had even made any inroads into the Outer Rim territories. She'd caught Uncle Bail discussing the situation with Garm Bel Iblis, and the tough-as-nails Corellian Senator had thought it likely that the communications disruption meant that some Outer Rim worlds had fallen – and they knew nothing at all about it.

_Nothing_, Leia thought in frustration, clenching her fists. Nothing about the enemy they'd fought, and lost. Coruscant. Contruum. Corellia. There was something dark in Garm's eyes now, and Uncle Bail had set Fors as the Senator's bodyguard and unofficial watchman. They did not need fighting, not now, and there was something in Garm chafing at the leash, and sniffing and baying for blood.

She forced herself to relax when Uncle Bail sensed her distress and shot her a sharp look. People had thought Uncle Bail was soft, but he was showing his mettle now in the crisis, stepping between every time tempers flared and people were at each other's throats. That happened a lot, these days. Bail Organa had a calming effect on people, almost quite like Luke, and Leia wished she could do something that would help.

"You've too much of your father's temper," Padme Amidala had said, ruefully. "And mine," she'd added later. Leia had seen the holorecordings of the speeches her mother had made in the Senate before, and she was bound to agree.

The Senate. The apartment her mother lived in when she had been Senator of Naboo. The Jedi Temple. All of them must be dust by now, duracrete melted by unbearable solar temperatures.

_You're not a child, Leia_, she reminded herself, but it was hard to think of all the destruction that the invaders had wrought and to not feel…afraid. Or saddened. Leia was a trained negotiator who had spent far more time in the Senate and watching diplomatic negotiations, rather than in the training rooms of the Jedi Temple. All she knew centred on the art of reading beings, of understanding their motives, of finding some sort of common ground. Compromise was at the heart of diplomacy and negotiating.

They knew nothing at all about the invaders, and even without her rudimentary Jedi abilities, Leia could all but sense the humming undercurrent of _fear_ running throughout the war room.

She could read it, the way she was trained, in the harried lines on Uncle Bail's face, the sharp thin edges of her mother's features which suggested that her mother wasn't getting enough rest again. She was probably skipping meals too, when she could. The faint blue hologram of Padme Amidala gave her daughter a tightly controlled nod before she returned her attention to the briefing taking place in the centre of the room.

_Mother's safe,_ Leia reminded herself, on top of the humming panic. _Naboo's in the Chommell sector, Mid Rim. _

_Alderaan is next in the invasion chain._

She looked up, and met Uncle Bail's eyes. There were sharp creases around them, that spoke of his worry more than words could.

_He has to know we're next._

He gave a quick motion, more with his eyes, to the centre of the gathering of Senators and military personnel. Leia thought she recognised Jedi Master Kyle Katarn among them. Taking the centre of the briefing room, and thus the floor, was Kyp Durron.

Leia knew him. While he looked vaguely dashing with his dark hair tied loosely behind him, and his bright green eyes, most of Kyp Durron's charm came, nevertheless, from the air of daring and boldness he'd managed to cultivate. From what Leia had heard, there were many in the Order who compared Kyp's antics with that of a young Anakin Skywalker. Leia wasn't certain how she felt about that. In any case, she'd never had a particularly close relationship to her father.

_Father. Was he on Coruscant?_

She took a deep breath. She wasn't close to Anakin Skywalker, and yet he was her father. The idea that he had perished in Coruscant's defense, like so many others had, opened up a wide gulf in her chest. She swallowed, and was glad she didn't have to speak. Not now.

Almost imperceptibly, Kyp turned and gave her a small wink. His lips were pressed so tightly together that they were pale, and she thought she detected a tremor to his hands as he held a half-empty drinkbulb.

Every Force-sensitive in the galaxy could not have failed to sense the destruction of Coruscant, and then Contruum and Corellia. Leia had felt it in the Force, even as half-trained as she was, the screams of millions of lives at once winking out in a shuddering avalanche of death. The memory threatened to make her own hands shake; there were no words to describe how the death of an entire planet felt in the Force.

She hoped she wouldn't ever sense it again.

But what Leia had sensed was an echo, resonating through the Force and picking up anyone caught in its wake. Kyp had _lived_ through the battles.

Mon Mothma finally called the meeting to order, and Kyp began his debriefing. "The first sign were violet skies," he said, in the deafening silence that followed. "I don't think any of us detected anything wrong; it happened maybe one or two days before the invasion itself. It was the jurisdiction of the planetary authorities, and the change was gradual."

"Tell us about the enemy forces," the hologram of Admiral Ackbar said. The Admiral himself was likely stationed on some capital ship near Mon Calamari. They hadn't had much time to mobilise, and Mon Calamari had not been able to scramble sufficient support for Contruum or Corellia – not in time to fend off the invaders' swift offensive. "Their disposition, their firepower…"

Kyp nodded and stared down at the drinkbulb in his hand. "They had capital ships orbiting Coruscant," he said, the clipped Coruscant accent he adopted under stress overlaying his Deyer accent. "At least twenty-five of them, huge ships of organic design. The same with the smaller ships – they looked like chunks of floating rock. I didn't get a good idea of their numbers, but if they'd anything like our standard _Venator_-class Destroyers can mount, then that's…"

"Stang," Captain Raymus Antilles said. He coughed at the slip, but his eyebrows remained furrowed. "That's nowhere near enough for an invasion fleet."

"There's more of them," Ferus Olin remarked, quietly. Leia glanced over; she hadn't expected the head of her uncle's security to be in on this, although it made perfect sense. Ferus Olin had once trained as a Jedi, before he'd left the Order. He'd never looked back, ever since. "This was well-planned. Too well-planned an invasion to throw it away on just twenty-five capital ships."

"Most planets don't have that many," said another captain. Piett, Leia thought.

"Depends on the planet," Captain Gilad Pellaeon replied. "But Alderaan…"

"Alderaan's never kept a large standing navy," Tycho Celchu agreed with his colleague's assessment. "But Olin's right. There's likely to be more of them."

Kyle Katarn, Jedi Master and acting Grand Master of the Jedi Order nodded slowly. His Padawan, Jaden Korr, assumed a seat beside his Master. No, Leia realised, not Padawan. Not any longer. His braid had been newly severed, and Jedi Knight Jaden Korr felt the weight of her gaze and looked up, grey eyes meeting hers, giving her a nod of acknowledgement.

He'd Knighted his own Padawan on the field. For some reason, the knowledge that Jaden had never been taken to the Council chamber and Knighted struck her hard. The Jedi Order was fractured, mostly dead. Kyle had Knighted Jaden, not just because his Padawan was ready, but because they needed every Jedi Knight they could get operating in the field.

And he'd realised this even before their council had convened.

"Capabilities?" Kyle wanted to know, turning the discussion back to the invading fleet.

"They're faster and more nimble," Kyp said, turning the drinkbulb over in his hands, as if he needed the distraction. "Don't know how whatever species in there sees, but they seem to have better visuals than our scanners – they react faster, anyway. Most of the ordinary pilots we eventually managed to scramble were shot down. They had some kind of shielding we couldn't detect, took our lasers, proton torpedoes…just about anything, really, without much difficulty. I didn't get to see if they could take a direct hit from a medium cruiser. Possibly. I took a few hits too – their weaponry didn't seem like laser technology, more like some crude form of molten rock. Maybe plasma." He took a long sip from the drinkbulb before he continued, "The larger ships weren't firing on us. Ground control wasn't able to get too many capital ships off the ground, and the few that did got shot down, or didn't manage to make a difference in ship-to-ship combat."

Ackbar blinked. The nictitating membranes flickered over his eyes as the Admiral sat back, seemingly in thought. Some of the scientists were muttering among themselves; Leia couldn't quite catch what they were saying.

_Alien ships,_ she thought. That a Jedi couldn't identify them suggested a threat from the Outer Rim, or even the Unknown Regions. Maybe Wild Space. But how did a fleet make it from the Outer Rim or beyond to the Core without being detected along the hyperspace lanes?

_Unless key planets along the hyperspace lanes have fallen. Or those ships don't enter or use hyperspace in the way ours do. Ships of impossible organic design._

"The purple skies were some kind of chemical weapon," Kyp continued. "Those who had to evac died. Whatever agent it was, an evac suit doesn't keep it out. Flight suit scrubbers don't seem to be able to detect them."

Shamballa Dain leaned forward, interested. "Describe the symptoms," one of Alderaan's leading scientists said. Kyp's eyes grew stormy; he took a deep breath, and the protocol droid must have sensed danger, because C3-PO was on him before a disaster could occur, offering him more refreshment. That delay meant everything to the anger and sadness darkening Kyp's presence in the Force; something else overlaid it, a sense that Leia had come to recognise as a form of grim determination, with the faint tang of steel.

Kyp looked as if he wanted to reject the offer, but sighed and accepted another drinkbulb. He worked open the flimsiplast tab with his thumb absently, and then took another long sip from it.

"My Master was among the afflicted," Kyp said, ice coating the sharp, distinct Coruscanti words. He sat up stiffly, as if giving a report to the Jedi Council, and Leia could sense the tightly-held back sense of distress leaking off his shields. "What I observed was some choking, a _lot_ of coughing, along with blood. The eyes start streaming. The victim starts gasping for air. Perhaps at about ten standard minutes – maybe five, the victim starts to leak blood from every orifice and dies. He might or might not have been feverish. I don't know. I didn't check."

"Could it have gotten through the cockpit seals?" Ei Chikwahoy of Neban blurted out, looking extremely horrified. "So this man could already be carrying the infection – "

"It doesn't sound like a virus," Tycho noted, "Unless any of the scientists have anything to say about it?" he was greeted by silence. "In any case, standard procedure requires a check of the cockpit vacuum seals before launch. Those cockpit canopies would have to be airtight, and we know that whatever it is, it's airborne."

Shamballa nodded. "It doesn't sound like a chemical agent I can think of, not immediately," she said aloud, in her clear voice. "We'd need to find samples, at the very least, and run some tests. Was this deployed on Corellia or Contruum?"

Garm Bel Iblis was already shaking his head.

"Are you sure?" Thees Ajid demanded. "You'd put all of us at risk with your guesses!" Mon Mothma shot him a coolly contemptuous look as the room dissolved into murmuring and the exchange of dark glances.

"Senators, please!" Padme's voice cut through the babble of voices and the shouting that had enveloped the entire room. "If the chemical agent that Jedi Durron mentioned was so highly effective, I can scarcely believe he would be carrying it several days later and still be alive to tell us the tale!"

"Maybe he's exaggerating," Ajid growled, sullenly.

Kyle opened his mouth. Kyp stood up. But it was Leia who made the move, storming out of her seat and delivering an open-handed slap across the Senator's face. "Enough!" she shouted, frustrated. Ajid staggered backwards, hand going to his cheek. He looked far more stunned than anything else; it wasn't as if she had struck him hard.

Leia stared around the room, completely furious, and stared Ei Chikwahoy down until he glanced at his clasped hands and swallowed. "Senators, I am ashamed," she said, more quietly now, modulating her voice as she'd been trained, forcing them to lean forward to listen to her. "I am ashamed because this mean – " she stabbed her finger in Kyp's direction, "– this _brave_ man is a member of the Jedi Order in good standing. In any other system in the Republic, it would be enough for his word to be taken exactly as it is. It is not, enough, here. Then what is enough, Senators? Admirals?" she added, including the military personnel gathered in the room. "Doctors? Is it enough that he engaged the enemy above Coruscant's skies? That he watched his Master die, one out of so many of the Jedi who have given their lives for the defense of the Galactic City? Can we say that all honour, all kindness, all reason died with the Senate on Coruscant?"

Ajid glared at her, but held his tongue.

"Senators, please," she said again, "We are gathered here to stop the enemy that is inches away from our doorstep. We know they are coming. We know they can be stopped. They _must_ be stopped. The silence of Coruscant, of Corellia, the graveyard of Contruum…they demand as much, gentlemen. The dead will not speak. The dead will not speak, except through men like Jedi Durron, who have survived where others fell. And if – " she said forcefully, speaking over Ajid, who had opened his mouth again, "If we do not heed their warning, if we argue among ourselves and let fear and selfishness divide us, then we will last only until the enemy is on our doorstep. And they will come."

She was breathing heavily when she sat back down. Kyp caught her eyes; his mouth quirked in a faint smile. She sensed approval from Kyle, and a strange sort of mingled pride and sadness from Uncle Bail.

"Well, Senators," Padme Amidala said, "As my daughter has put forth so forcefully, we are at war with an enemy that will take advantage of our weaknesses…if we let them. And it is a war. The enemy has made no attempt to speak with Coruscant, or any of the worlds they have left in their wake. If we cannot set our minds to replacing what was lost on Coruscant, then we are lost."

_We are at war,_ Leia thought. As the dull rage faded away, in its place, there was fear. Trepidation. She'd been born as the Clone Wars ended. Her studies of history had said that the Republic had never seen a major war, not since the Ruusan Reformation.

And now, it looked as though one was right upon them.

* * *

Later, Leia found Kyp, sitting alone on one of the stone benches in the palace gardens. He said nothing, but she knew he'd sensed her coming. "Was it so bad?" Leia asked, softly, so as not to disturb anyone else who might be nearby. Kyp said nothing, just shifted a little on the stone bench to make room for her. There was something dark and haunted in his green eyes, something that shifted and hid as Leia tried to pin it down.

In the Force, he burned, his presence laced with a restlessness – no, a disquiet that Leia had never seen so clearly before. He was letting her see it, she realised, staring at the younger man.

"Had a good look?" Kyp asked wryly, and Leia recovered with the ease of a trained diplomat, slipping into the opening he'd left her.

"Yes," she said, "But I'd like to hear it from you. What happened there, Kyp?" she asked gently. Kyp had been one of her friends during the brief time she'd spent at the Jedi Temple. The Jedi tended to ignore age-sets, once a student became a Padawan. While younglings mingled mostly among themselves, it wasn't uncommon to find friendships among senior Padawans and younglings newly become Padawans.

Kyp had been something of a prodigy when it came to the Jedi arts, yet another thing that had gotten him comparisons with Anakin Skywalker. Kyp, Luke – even Galen – they'd all been friends of some sort. A mission to Kessel had somehow gotten sidetracked, leading Luke to Deyer, and there he'd picked Kyp up. Galen, they'd known if only because her father had taken him as his apprentice, and everyone thought the Anakin Skywalker was never going to train an apprentice.

_Galen, Luke, Father – are they still alive?_

Leia envied her mother, envied the way Padme Amidala could so easily set aside her concerns to deal with the host of issues they now faced. Some Senatorial aide that made her, Leia thought, thinking of her own inability to set aside her feelings and work.

"You were in the briefing," Kyp said with a shrug. He tried one of his charming smiles on her, but Leia raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. He blinked, and with a chameleon-like change of mood, said, "It was bad. The briefing doesn't begin to cover it, Leia."

"Talk to me."

He swung one of his legs over the edge of the bench, turning to face her. "Alright," Kyp said. His eyes glittered fiercely. "This is the big one. The one you can't talk about. Not even in the council."

Leia frowned. "Alright. What?"

"We can't sense them in the Force."

"How is that possible?" Leia asked, puzzled. "The Force is supposed to be generated by and to connect all life."

Kyp shrugged. "Blast if I know," he said, almost cheerfully. Leia wondered how much of it was feigned. "Our transponder readers don't pick up on them, our lasers can't hit them, and they're invisible in the Force. I'd get far better readings off a droid."

And Kyp was _right_. Command – or whatever they had that passed for command needed to know. And yet if this got out, it would spark a panic. It would be an infestation in the wound of Coruscant. The Jedi were vulnerable. The Jedi were blind. "What about the Order now?"

Now, Kyp grinned. "Oh, you're going to love this. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Master of the Order, so presumably, _if_ he survived, he would be next in line from Master Windu. But we have no idea if Kenobi survived Coruscant, so the only ranking Master that we know of who is in command is Master Katarn."

"Have you told him?" Leia demanded.

Kyp's smile faded. "Yes, of course," he replied. "It's Kyle's problem, now."

_No_, Leia thought, though she did not speak aloud. It wasn't just Kyle's problem. It was their problem: all of them, Force-sensitives and non-Force-sensitives both. Common sense and perhaps a spark of Jedi intuition told her exactly that.

If anything, Leia was a student of history. A politician's training demanded as much, and Jedi history had been especially relevant to her family. More than one entry had been made by her father. The Jedi had often been critical to the war effort, spearheading decisive strikes, succeeding where non-Force-sensitives failed. But if these new invaders were dead to the Force…

Kyp shifted again. His hand brushed hers in a friendly gesture. "Hey," he said, "Don't think about it now."

Leia blinked, and nodded. _Focus_, she told herself, drawing on lessons shared between the Jedi Temple and her diplomacy classes. Strange how politics and Jedi training overlapped at times, particularly when it came to control.

"What are you planning on doing?" she asked him, partly to make conversation, and partly because she knew that Kyp had been in on some war meetings that she'd missed. Leia didn't find the specific briefings urgent: she was too busy handling the multiple diplomat-courier packages sent between planets and helping Uncle Bail deal with the public relations backlash from Coruscant.

Propaganda, history classes would name her efforts one day. Perhaps they were right.

Kyp looked away, down where his boots met the smooth pebbles of the paved path. He said, "I've signed up for a reconnaissance mission."

A tight sense of guilt-determination-_pain_-guilt leaked through his shields. Kyp's lips tightened, and so did his shields. The brief impression Leia had gotten through the Force disappeared abruptly.

She knew Kyp enough to know he'd deflect any probing questions with some wry observation, or humour. The hard truth was that one way or another, they had too few Jedi left. They were likely to need whatever information Kyp could give them – and he'd gone up against the invaders before. That kind of experience was always some sort of advantage. There was almost no one else who would have been as suitable for such a mission as Kyp.

As the other Jedi and military survivors of Coruscant – or even Contruum. Corellia.

Maybe doing something was what Kyp needed, too.

Leia itched to be far more useful. As it was, all she had was the nagging feeling that she wasn't doing anything that Uncle Bail's secretary couldn't handle. That she wasn't doing enough.

"What does that involve?" she asked, keeping her tone light.

Kyp grimaced as he sat properly on the bench now, swinging his leg back over the edge. "You remember Shamballa Dain, from the council meeting?"

Leia nodded. "She's one of the best biochemists Alderaan has. Specialises in…" she frowned, and then snapped her fingers as the memory slipped into place. "Applied chemistry. Chemical warfare. Graduated from the university in Coruscant, and then came back to Alderaan to further her studies."

Kyp made an open, loose gesture with his hands, suggesting she'd gotten the gist of it. "We need more information. You know that. What Shamballa's proposing to do is to get small teams – one or two ships equipped with everything they need to get that data so our scientists can tell us exactly what we're facing."

There was something he wasn't quite telling her; that dark look in his green eyes as if he was measuring her, considering whether to tell her or not to. Leia neatly solved the dilemma for him.

"Tell me," she said – no, snapped – she must have been more frustrated than she'd thought, and it was all coming up now when she was speaking to Kyp.

Kyp started, and sighed as he saw the look in her eyes. "That's Phase One," he said slowly, scuffing at a loose pebble with his boot. "We go right into the dead zone, and see what we can find. It's a high-priority mission. Jedi and ace pilots only."

The dead zone. Leia almost forgot. That was what they were calling the region the invaders had struck. The dead zone. No signs of life left.

"We don't think there are survivors, and any ships searching for survivors…will be put through full quarantine procedures," Kyp's eyes had grown hard, "At the urging of the Senator."

They both knew which Senator. "And Phase Two?" Leia demanded.

Kyp took a deep breath. "Alderaan," he said quietly. "We know they're coming for the next of the Core Worlds. We evacuate Alderaan of all non-essential personnel. And hope to hell that in the fighting, we get something on the invaders we _can_ use. If we can't, we're in for it."

The most frightening thing was the empty look in his eyes when he said it.

Abandon Alderaan.

Abandon another world to the invaders.


End file.
